Advertisement

If you have an ACS member number, please enter it here so we can link this account to your membership. (optional)

ACS values your privacy. By submitting your information, you are gaining access to C&EN and subscribing to our weekly newsletter. We use the information you provide to make your reading experience better, and we will never sell your data to third party members.

ENJOY UNLIMITED ACCES TO C&EN

Pollution

Silicone Bracelets Find A New Purpose

Environmental Monitoring: Ubiquitous silicone wristbands can act as easy-to-wear samplers for tracking a person’s chemical exposure

by Naomi Lubick
March 3, 2014

Collecting Cuffs
[+]Enlarge
Credit: Environ. Sci. Technol.
Lightweight, easy-to-wear silicone wristbands could serve as personal monitors that pick up a person’s exposure to chemicals in the environment.
Photo of silicone wristbands
Credit: Environ. Sci. Technol.
Lightweight, easy-to-wear silicone wristbands could serve as personal monitors that pick up a person’s exposure to chemicals in the environment.

People often slip on colorful silicone gel bracelets to show support for a favorite cause or sports team. Now, researchers demonstrate that those wristbands can serve a different purpose. The bands can act as easy-to-wear devices that track a person’s chemical exposure over the course of a day, week, or even months (Environ. Sci. Technol. 2014, DOI: 10.1021/es405022f).

Researchers want to monitor the range of compounds that people inhale in different environments to see if they can tease out any potential health effects. Some of the most informative existing personal exposure monitors are bulky, battery-powered devices that have to be carried around in a backpack all day. Kim A. Anderson of Oregon State University got the idea to test silicone wristbands after seeing fans wearing them at a football game. She knew that silicone acts like a sponge, absorbing a variety of compounds from the air.

She and her team recruited 30 volunteers to wear specially manufactured silicone bracelets continuously for 30 days. The researchers collected the devices, used solvents to extract the compounds trapped in the silicone, and identified the compounds using gas chromatography/mass spectrometry. They looked for 1,200 possible compounds and found 49, including polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), flame retardants, and other industrial chemicals, as well as personal care products and pesticides.

The researchers also tracked eight construction workers who wore combinations of three types of silicone monitoring devices, including wristbands, over work periods lasting up to 40 hours. At the end of each sampling period, the team observed different compound combinations and levels in the silicone for each person depending on how they spent their day. For example, the team found that construction workers who worked in a partially enclosed setting picked up more PAHs than those who worked outdoors.

Julie Herbstman, an epidemiologist at Columbia University, says the backpack monitors are still the gold standard for personal exposure monitoring, in particular because they can track particulate matter, which the silicone bands would miss. But the advantage of a wristband is that it’s so unobtrusive that the wearers “sort of forget about it.” Herbstman is now working with Anderson’s team to test the bands with pregnant women to track their exposure to PAHs and to compare the performance of wristbands with backpack monitors.

Advertisement

Article:

This article has been sent to the following recipient:

0 /1 FREE ARTICLES LEFT THIS MONTH Remaining
Chemistry matters. Join us to get the news you need.